Picasa, Inc. Press Release 23/02/04

For Second Consecutive Year Picasa’s Hello Chosen by Industry Experts as an Influence
on the Future of Digital Imaging

Pasadena, CA—February 23, 2004—Picasa, Inc.(tm), the leading developer of software which enables photographers to effortlessly organize, manage and share digital photos, has been awarded the prestigious 2004 “DIMA Innovative Digital Product Award” for the second consecutive year. This year the award went to Picasa’s Hello, an instant photo sharing application that enables users to share images securely over a peer-to-peer network and chat about them in real time. Last year the honor went to the company’s flagship photo organizing software, Picasa

LAS VEGAS, Feb.—Eastman Kodak Company introduced the new PROSHOTS Basics Software that simplifies the image-ordering process for photographers and professional labs.

The software, free to photographers and available as a download at http://www.kodak.com/proshots/basicsinfo, allows photographers to more easily select and organize images, proof and complete prints, and submit orders over the Internet or by CD to their lab,. It also connects photographers to Pro Labs and makes the image-ordering process easier.

“Customers told us they needed an easy-to-use solution that simplified the image-ordering process and supports the Mac platform we incorporated that feedback into our KODAK PROSHOTS Basics Software,” said John Blake, World Wide General Manager Pro Output Division Eastman Kodak Company. “It improves capture to output workflows so that professional photographers and Pro Labs can take on additional business and expand their client base. Additionally, because it is Macintosh compatible, KODAK PROSHOTS Basics expands Kodak’s reach to the estimated one third of Professional Photographers who are MAC users. Increasing the market potential by 50% for KODAK PROSHOTS also drives incremental printing volumes which is great news for KODAK PROSHOTS Participating Labs.”

“The Power Mac G5, Apple’s beautiful Cinema Displays and Mac OS X with its breakthrough in innovation, ease of use and reliability are a perfect fit for photographers and professional labs,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “With the new KODAK PROSHOTS Basic Software, labs and photographers can now benefit from an easy and simplified workflow while taking advantage of the superfast Power Mac G5.”

Matsushita Electric (Panasonic) Develops the Industry Smallest Pixel Sized Image Sensors for Mobile Phone Use

Tokyo, Japan, Feb 13, 2004 16:23 (JST) - (JCN Newswire) - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., best known for its Panasonic brand of consumer electronics and digital communication products, today announced the development of the next-generation image sensor “v(nu)MAICOVICON” which is the smallest in the industry suitable for mobile phone use to achieve both high picture quality and low power consumption. Compared to the conventional image sensors, the new product has advantages such as less power consumption than the CCD (Charge Coupled Device) image sensors, and higher quality image production compared to CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) image sensors. Mass production of the
v(nu)MAICOVICON sensors will start this month.

Gateway Press Release 26/02/04

PR Newswire via NewsEdge Corporation: Five-Megapixel Model Beats Out Industry’s Established Leaders

POWAY, Calif., Feb. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Continuing its successful advance into digital consumer electronics, Gateway today announced that its DC-T50 5.25 megapixel digital camera was named 2004’s “Best Consumer Digital Camera” at the annual Best Magazine Awards.

The Best Magazine Awards were presented at the DigitalFocus(tm) 2004 event in Las Vegas prior to the Photo Marketing Association 2004 trade show. According to Best Magazine, the awards honor companies for their outstanding digital imaging products. The Gateway DC-T50 beat out such long-time industry heavyweights as Olympus, Kodak, Minolta, Fujifilm, HP and Pentax, who were all named finalists in the Consumer Digital Camera category.

The sun has finally showed it’s face here on the so-called “friendly island” of Tenerife and I’ve spent most of today on the streets of Santa Cruz, capturing the local landmarks, snapping old doorways and scaring the local prostitutes (ask me another time). Yesterday the rain held off long enough for the Carnaval to take place, and tomorrow I’ll be visiting the historic town of La Laguna. I?ll be updating the site again soon, so until then, adios.

From an amateur photographer’s point of view, the Council Tax protest was a great event to attend. It was a relatively small and certainly non-violent affair, so you could wander freely without any threat to your personal safety. There were also no out-of-bounds areas; usually you need some kind of press pass to get to the best vantage points, but at this protest I was able to rub shoulders with the newspaper guys with their digital SLRs and laptops, who were busy sending their photos back to base almost as soon as they had taken them. I was even able to wander around between the guest speakers and the onlooking crowd, allowing great close-up candids, especially when they started boo-ing the long winded and tedious Scottish speaker :-) Best of all, everyone was more than happy to have their photograph taken - some people had travelled a long way and seemed determined to enjoy the occasion.

View more Council Tax Protest photos

Hola! Just a quick post from mostly cloudy, sometimes sunny Santa Cruz in Tenerife (this already sounds like the beginning of a postcard!). It looks like the site is running itself well enough without me - I’ll have more time on Wednesday so expect to see a bigger update then. Remember that I won’t be answering email until Monday March 1st.

DCResource have just reviewed the 3-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 3200 compact digital camera.

“The Nikon Coolpix 3200 is a decent point-and-shoot camera, but I found it lacking in two important areas. The first is noise, especially indoors where the lighting isn’t great. This is due to the auto ISO system that most Nikon point-and-shoots have. The redeye test and this picture are great examples of the noise problem. For shots taken outdoors or in good lighting, the noise levels are acceptable. The other issue I had, which affects those who want to take action photos, is the shot-to-shot speed.”

Website: DCResource - Nikon Coolpix 3200 Review

DCResource have posted their review of the Pentax Optio 33WR, a compact 3-megapixel camera with a 2.8x optical zoom and a weather resistant case.

“The Pentax Optio 33WR ($350) is one of the cameras that are water resistant right out of the box. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here: water resistant is not the same as waterproof. The 33WR can get splashed or rained on, but you can’t go swimming with it. The manual says that it can be submersed in water briefly, and gives an example of washing the camera off in the sink (don’t use soap, though).”

Website: DCResource - Pentax Optio 33WR Review

The Norwegian website Digit.no have posted their review of the compact Nikon Coolpix 3700 digital camera. The Coolpix 3700 has a very different design from previous Coolpix models, with a brushed aluminium body that’s both slim and lightweight. The 3.2 megapixel 3700 features a 3x optical zoom that is equivalent to 35-105mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Website: Digit.no - Nikon Coolpix 3700 Review

The Danish magazine Digitalmagasinet have reviewed the stylish 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 digital camera, which should be available in your local photography shop now.

Website: Digitalmagasinet - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 Review

The Norwegian website Akamera.no has posted its review of the Olympus CAMEDIA C-5060 Wide Zoom camera, an updated version of the popular Olympus CAMEDIA C-5050 model, with a wider-angle lens that is equivalent to a 27-110mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Website: Akamera.no - Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom Review

The Danish website Finclockers have reviewed the 3.2 megapixel Minolta DiMAGE Z1. This digicam has a 10x optical zoom lens, equivalent to a 38-380mm 35mm camera zoom, which in combination with the digital zoom offers a 40X zoom range.

Website: Akamera.dk - Minolta DiMAGE Z1 Review

For the benefit of everyone who doesn’t live in the UK, Council Tax is a form of personal taxation based on the value of the property that you live in (rented or owned), which is split into different bands. Personally I pay just under ?900 per year to Barnet council, which helps them pay for things like roads and public services. Last year saw massive rises of up to 20% in some parts of the country. Consequently pensioners were the hardest hit, as their pensions certainly didn’t go up by the same sort of percentages. In January a Council Tax Protest took place in Central London, starting as always in Trafalgar Square, and attended by several thousand angry pensioners.

View more Council Tax Protest photos

What would have been the centre-point of the garden in Summer, this sunflower was tied drooping to a post in Winter, dried out but still relatively intact. Weak mid-morning sunlight and the crisp cold air helped it to regain some of its former glory.

View more Winter photos

Well, I should be in the air as you read this, delays at Heathrow permitting. Just to remind you of what the UK is (sometimes) like at this time of year, here are a few more shots of deepest winter, courtesy of Jack Frost, the Canon EOS 10D and my macro lens.

View more Winter photos

I’m off to Santa Cruz in Tenerife on Wednesday for a 10-day trip to soak up the sun and photograph the Carnival, which apparently is the second-biggest in the world after Rio de Janeiro (at least that’s what the guidebook claims). Consequently I won’t be answering emails or updating PhotographyBLOG until I arrive back on March 1st. The Photo of the Week competition will also return on that day.

Newsline International Press Release 17/02/04

Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., USA; Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan; and Canon Inc., Tokyo, Japan; were the companies leading digital-camera sales in the fourth quarter—a period that saw explosive sales growth and widespread acceptance of filmless photography by average shutterbugs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Total U.S. shipments of digital still cameras soared to 7.5 million units in the period, an 85 percent gain from a year earlier, according to market researcher International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., USA.

For the year, market researcher NPD Group of Port Washington, N.Y., USA, estimated digital-camera sales grew 29 percent to $3.6 billion in the United States, excluding Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which doesn’t participate in the survey. Worldwide rankings for the year aren’t available.

Kodak, with strong sales of its EasyShare cameras, gained eight points of market share to become the No. 2 shipper of digital cameras in the United States in the quarter with 20 percent, trailing Japan’s Sony Corp. at 22 percent. Japan’s Canon gained four points of share and moved up to the No. 3 ranking, at 16 percent. Kodak and Canon moved past the previous No. 2, Olympus Corp., which slipped to No. 4 with a 10 percent share, said the article.

Kopin Corp. Press Release 17/02/04

Kopin’s Ultra High-Resolution Color VGA Display System Selected for Groundbreaking Konica Minolta Eight-Megapixel SLR-Type Camera

TAUNTON, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Feb. 17, 2004—Kopin CyberEVF(TM) VGA is World’s Highest-Resolution Electronic Viewfinder System in a Digital Still Camera  

Kopin Corp. (NASDAQ: KOPN) today announced that the new Konica Minolta eight-megapixel DiMAGE A2 digital still camera (DSC), the first in a new generation of professional-class photography equipment, incorporates a full-color Kopin CyberEVF(TM) Electronic Viewfinder system, which is the highest-resolution viewfinder ever used in a DSC. The DiMAGE A2 just commenced shipping in Asia and is expected to be available in the United States by the end of February, 2004.

The Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2 is a single-lens reflex (SLR)-type DSC that for the first time enables photographers to preview the color, lighting and composition of what they are shooting precisely as it will appear in the finished photograph. To deliver this unprecedented performance, the DiMAGE A2 incorporates Kopin’s CyberEVF system along with Konica Minolta’s “Super Fine EVF” technology. In addition to providing extraordinary viewfinder resolution, these complementary systems allow the DiMAGE A2 to display remaining battery life and available memory - information that can be critical to capturing once-in-a-lifetime images.

“With its low-power, miniature footprint and exceptionally large high-resolution image, Kopin’s CyberEVF viewfinder system enables us to give our customers - both hobbyists and professionals - a power-efficient, feature-rich camera that will enable them to create consistently superior images,” said Keiichi Ishizuka, division manager, Digital Photo Development Division, Konica Minolta Camera, Inc. Japan. “With the CyberEVF-equipped DiMAGE A2, what you see is what you get - a tremendous advance for photographers who have mastered the art of seeing. The camera also enables exact focusing capabilities through the viewfinder, eliminating the parallax problems common in other high-resolution DSCs. We look forward to future collaborations with Kopin that advance the state of the photographic art.”

The winning image in the World Press Photo of the Year 2003 award has been announced.  color image of a masked Iraqi war prisoner holding his 4-year-old son at a U.S. detention camp by Associated Press Photographer Jean-Marc Bouju won the award. More than 63,000 photos were entered with 81% taken using a digital camera. Visit the MSNBC website to see the winning image.

Website: MSNBC

Website: World Press Photo